


someone like me

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cooking, F/M, First Kiss, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9776774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Coulson offers to cook a romantic Valentine's Day dinner for Mack and YoYo. He's going to need help.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts).



“So what’s the story here?” Daisy asks, crooking her neck to get a glimpse of Coulson’s face.

He’s crouched down, in front of the oven. She can see big beads of sweat running down his neck, as he is shaking his head.

“The story is we have a really shitty oven.”

She chuckles - Coulson never swears, it’s kind of incongruent, yet it fits.

“Something I can help you with?”

He lets out a big sigh and leans back, his hands on the floor behind him.

“Maybe,” he says, sounding a bit defeated, a bit grateful for the offer.

Daisy had wandered into the kitchen because she had run out of water bottles; she wasn’t planning on being much around the base today. She knows how that sounds. It’s not like she’s grumpy about being single on Valentine’s Day, that stuff is stupid (especially given the very real problems they have to deal with these days). But she is not really in the mood to talk to people. Most of them are off-base anyway, because duh, it’s Valentine’s Day anyway. She’s glad she’s found Coulson here. He is not included in “not in the mood to talk to people”, he’s not _people_ , he’s Coulson.

He lifts his hand, gesturing for Daisy to help him up.

“So, what’s the story here?” she asks as she grabs him by the arm and pulls him up.

“Mack asked me to cook a romantic dinner for him and YoYo,” he says. Daisy raises her eyebrow. “He knew he was going to be stuck on the field all day so they couldn’t go somewhere to celebrate.”

Daisy nods. Their first Valentine’s Day as a couple hadn’t been great for Mack and Elena, on account of everybody almost dying. So this year she understand that even Mack wants to get a bit sappy about it.

“Why ask you?” she asks. “No offence.”

“None taken. He likes my cooking,” Coulson says.

He looks a bit bashful. Daisy feels compelled to prod.

“It was more than a year ago, when you weren’t here,” he says and Daisy feels a pang of guilt she knows she shouldn’t feel. She has never regretted walking away that time, but she feels guilty for making everybody feel bad about it. “It was mostly me and Mack alone on missions, so I cooked for him a lot.”

“Did you ever get fancy?”

Coulson nods, hiding his eyes.

“So what are we making for them today?” Daisy asks.

His eyes widen a bit, like he's condiering if that's an offer. It is, but he hasn't asked for her help.

“The plan was roast duck, but the oven…”

He gestures helplessly.

Twenty minutes of trying to figure out what was wrong with the damned oven and she is covered in sweat as well. But on the other hand it turns out that -

“I’m a genius engineer,” she tells Coulson, proudly showing the oven working perfectly now.

“You might very well be,” he comments, gently pushing her away so he can finally put the duck and vegetables in. “Thank you.”

For some reason Daisy feels a bit awkward for being thanked by Coulson for fixing the oven. Like there’s something weirdly domestic about that.

“Hey, no problem, I was just in my bunk feeling sorry for myself, anyway,” she says, a little too honest.

Coulson’s eyes do the thing for a moment. The thing, you know, _the thing_ , the soft and kind and worried thing. The thing was the reason Daisy wanted to join SHIELD for real all those years ago. He doesn’t press for more information about her misery, of course, but Daisy can tell it’s not for lack of interest.

“I’m actually a bit behind on my schedule,” he says, eyes still fixed on Daisy, still doing the thing. “Due to the oven incident. You think maybe you can help me out?”

 

**&**

She doesn’t think she’s helped someone cook since the days of kitchen duty with the nuns - which, helping Coulson is the opposite of that.

For one, he actually lets her snack while they cook. The ingredients he picked are amazing, too, Mack is a lucky guy, she thinks, as if Coulson was Mack’s date instead of YoYo. Joking aside, there’s something touching about how much work Coulson has put in, just to make sure his friends have a nice, romantic dinner.

She wonders, for a second or two, if he would put so much work if it were his own romance.

It also seems like someone helping him in the kitchen - which requires a lot of falling into a rhythm, a lot of being in sync, which comes naturally to him and Daisy - is not precisely new to him. Did he do this with a girlfriend? Does he miss her? If she’s honest she kind of thinks it’s _a crime_ that someone like Phil (they’re off the clock, she can call him Phil once or twice, in her head, right?) spends his Valentine’s Day alone.

Okay, he’s not alone-alone, but he is. Like, Daisy doesn’t really count.

“You could have asked me to help, you know? I mean, before this,” she says, gesturing at the cold appetizers they are preparing. Coulson is making some kind of light chilli sauce.

“It’s Valentine’s Day, I couldn’t ask you spend it in the kitchen with me.”

“Mack and YoYo are my friends. Plus my plans for Valentine’s this year consisted on spending about four hours strengthening the server’s firewall.”

“Couldn’t you do that some other time?” he asks.

“Of course but then I wouldn’t have anything to distract me from the fact that it’s Valentine’s and I have nothing better to do than fixing SHIELD’s crappy internet security.”

Coulson nods, very pensive.

“I know what you mean,” he says. “I was a bit happy when Mack asked me to cook. But that was before I found out we had this piece of…” he trails off, eyeing the oven with anger. Daisy almost chuckles - it’s kind of surreal that Coulson, who has been able to keep his cool while going up against terrorists and aliens, has such an emotional reaction to a kitchen appliance not giving him the results he wants.

“So I’m a bit curious,” she says.

“About what?”

“Where do you fall on the Valentine’s Day spectrum.”

“The - what?”

“I think you could go either way,” Daisy goes on. “You’re obviously a romantic, so you could either go overboard with the VDay preparations and like, I don’t know, book the best restaurant of the city months in advance. Or maybe you’re one of those people who think every day of the year with your lover should be special, and if it’s only Valentine’s then you’re doing something wrong.”

Coulson gives her a strange look. She thought he’d find it funny, or maybe he’d be embarrassed.

“I’m just amused you’ve dedicated any time at all wondering what I think about Valentine’s Day.”

Oh shit. She hopes he doesn’t think it’s creepy or anything. she always wonders this kind of stuff about Coulson - when she first joined his team he spent a long time, maybe hours every day, analyzing the data she had on him, in part to figure out if she could trust him with her secrets, in part because she was really curious about the guy, as a person, not as a suit.

“Well, yeah, as I said. I have no social life and a lot of downtime.”

There’s a beat. Daisy thinks she has ruined the nice kitchen rapport they had built.

But Coulson was just thinking about her question.

“I think I'm a bit of both,” he replies.

“Both.”

“With the right person every day _should_ be as romantic as Valentine’s Day,” he says. “But I know that’s not realistic, you can only try. The world is going to be unkind, so I don’t think is a bad idea to set a day apart for something special anyway.”

“That’s…” Daisy says, biting her bottom lip. “A really great way of seeing it actually.”

He smirks, a bit smug of having given a good answer. An amazing answer, actually. It’s the best view on Valentine’s Day she’s heard. Romantic, but she knew that about Coulson. But also down-to-earth, like he would put in the work. 

“Let me guess,” he tries, “you are morally opposed to Valentine’s Day because it’s just a marketing ruse to sell flowers and chocolate.”

She likes that he doesn’t say it in a judgemental or mocking way, not like Fitz would say it, with a slight sneer because it’s ridiculous to him that someone might have strong feelings about the society of consumerism. But Coulson simply seems to be making a guess.

“I want to be that person,” she confesses. “But those marketing bastards, they got me. I also want flowers and a nice boy or girl to tell me they love me on Valentine’s.”

He stares at her.

Daisy avoids the glance and lets out a soft chuckle.

“don’t mind me. Maybe I’m just feeling really bored and lonely,” she says and shrugs.

Coulson’s eye carefully fixate on her, with a kind of a sad expression.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he tells her,

“Oh, it’s not so bad, just… you know.”

She shrugs again, and turns around, concentrating on cutting the cucumber. She tries to will her embarrassment away - it’s not fun admitting she’s lonely, and it seems stupid and selfish with all the things the world is going through.

Coulson puts a glass of wine in front of her. She looks up, struck by an unusual gentleness in his face (not that he isn’t gentle, _he is_ , the gentlest, but this particular look, Daisy doesn’t think she’s seen it before).

“You’re right,” he says. “We were missing some wine.”

 

**&**

Twenty minutes later, she doesn’t feel that miserable.

In fact there’s a nice buzz in her head that’s asking her why she was so gloomy in the first place. This evening is going great! She’s hanging out with a great dude and sampling delicious food while she helps him cook, and sampling this nice but reasonably-priced red wine and seriously, as far a Valentine Day’s go this is the most fun she’s had since that year Miles drove them both to Santa Fe and she ended up getting sick from green chile and cheap beer but they made out anyway.

Remembering that gives Daisy a funny feeling. She’s still that person - she is a lot more complicated and a lot of crappy stuff has happened to her, and she is focused on serious stuff, but she still feels those experiences in her body, as much as her body has changed itself (icky way of putting it but yeah). Maybe it’s the wine talking but she doesn’t feel guilty that she’s pausing her gloomy superhero act for a moment and enjoying something more… earthy. Like, what’s the word? Sensual?

“Oh, we’re also missing shoddy VDay music,” she says, going to get her ipod.

The mains are pretty much taken care of, and when Daisy hits play on some random Valentine’s Day compilation, Coulson is focused on the dessert.

“I had never seen anyone make homemade chocolates,” she says, peeking over his shoulder as he stirs the liquid chocolate. She smiles at the carefulness of his hands, and how precise the movements of his prosthetic are. She remembers broken mugs of coffee when he couldn’t grip well. She presses herself against his back, as if to hug him, glad that he doesn’t have to feel helpless about that now.

He throws him a glance over the shoulder, noticing the touch, but he says nothing. Daisy pulls back, but the couple of drinks make her feel less embarrassed than usual for craving the touch of those close to her, those she loves. She feels kind of unapologetic tonight. and Coulson doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, maybe just surprised.

They eat a lot of chocolate while making the dessert - hey, they have to try how it tastes!

“It almost seems like a waste to give them to Mack and Elena,” she says when they are finished.

They are beautiful. As professional as ones you’d buy in a shop, but they look more yummy. The smell of cocoa and wine in the air is a nice combination.

“I mean, you’ve done such a great job here,” she adds, looking at his hands. They look beautiful to her now, because she has seen with what care they handled everything tonight. It makes sense, they are the hands that have held Daisy multiple times, the gentle touch to comfort her. 

“What I mean is,” she tries to explain. what does she mean, anyway? What does it feel like a waste that Coulson is cooking for another couple? She waves her arms, like that would make it make more sense. “You are so great at this, you should be enjoying it, yourself, with someone, with…”

She puts her hand over his on the counter and when he turns around Daisy presses her mouth against his. Apparently she has decided she is the someone he should share all this stuff with.

He tastes of wine and chocolate and for a moment Daisy is overwhelmed by how wonderful that feels, how wonderful Coulson feels under her mouth, like nothing in her life has felt.

His expression is a mixture of shock and concern.

“How bored and lonely are you to be considering this?”

Daisy frowns furiously. “Take that back, please.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

He turns around completely, gently wrapping both hands around her shoulders.

“I love you,” she says. “I might not have realized I was in love with you until twenty seconds ago but I’ve always loved you. Don’t say such a crappy thing about yourself, about us.”

“No. I’m sorry. Can I try this again?”

She nods, somewhat shyly.

He responds in kind, his kiss so tentative is bordering on cowardice. But it’s still so good, so new and familiar and Coulson. When he breaks it he has this tiny smile on his face and Daisy realizes he feels the same about it.

She lifts her hand to touch his cheek. Her fingers can’t do the amazing things Coulson’s can - she couldn’t have roasted duck, to begin with, or make a chilli dipping sauce -but they can be gentle. She feels this weird, fulfilling happiness that has nothing to do with Coulson kissing her back.

“All these years hoping someone would tell me they loved me on Valentine’s,” she says. “I didn’t know it’d feel so much better to be the one saying it.”

He looks, again, shocked, but not concerned. His fingers dig into her shoulders and this time he kisses her for real. He doesn’t let her go so quickly now and Daisy has time to lick the roof of his mouth, to collect the noise he makes at that, to taste him beyond the chocolate and the wine. He only lets go because they both want to look at the other in the eye, they can’t wait.

“But how clichéd is this?” she jokes, touching her nose to his. Oh that’s nice. “It’s like a bad romcom.”

“I like bad romcoms,” Coulson says.

“Really? I didn’t know that.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he tells her, and his voice is weird, good-weird, husky, sexy. “Let me show you.”

He grabs her by the hips and pushes her against the kitchen counter. Daisy gasps against his mouth and the gasps turns into a groan as she feels his whole body pressed up against her. Oh well. So it’s not _just_ love. Good to know. Suddenly the background music she was playing on her ipod reaches her, some kind of sappy 80s rock ballad Daisy is sure is going to be a personal favorite from now on. Oh, god, she thinks it’s Meat Loaf.

Just as she is about to throw her arms around Coulson’s neck she notices two figures walking into the kitchen from the corner of her eye.

She breaks the kiss, provoking a slightly annoyed “ _what-?_ ” from Coulson when she tears her mouth from his, until he too sees what she’s seeing. Unfortunately they don’t untangle their bodies from each other _in time_.

“Hey, hey,” YoYo shouts, genuinely angry at the sight. “This is _my_ Valentine’s Day, not your Valentine’s Day.”

Mack, conciliatory, throws an arm around her.

“Come on, I’m sure we can-”

“MI San Valentín, Mack. Mío.”

“Okay, okay.”

Daisy does a bit of silent communication with Coulson, blinking at him, each asking the other with a glance, just how dangerous would it be to tell Mack and YoYo that they ate all the chocolate.


End file.
